FICTION

THE NIGHTWATCHMAN

Sharon Anne 5-H-25 FPE

Harry Tilden parked his aging Ford sedan in the familiar spot, got the brown leather satchel out of the trunk, and walked across the rain spattered parking lot to the shipping and receiving entrance at the back of Thayer and Company's downtown store. He took his card from the rack and punched in at 4:58 p.m. It was a rainy Saturday afternoon and upstairs they were closing the store for the weekend. Harry found the maintenance man, Fred Schulman, changing clothes in the office shared by the maintenance and security staffs at the rear of the receiving area in the basement of the square block large, six story, department store.

"How's it going Harry?"

"Hello Fred," Harry returned, putting his leather satchel into a cabinet and removing his coat.

"Still raining out?" Fred wanted to know.

"No, it stopped about a half hour ago. Some storm though lots of lightning out by us."

Fred looked concerned. “Wonder if any of it hit the rods on the roof?"

"Isn't it supposed to hit them?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, well about five years ago it hit the alarm system instead of the rods and blew out the alarms. Old Gregory was about to go nuts."

"Well, they say it never strikes twice," Harry reassured him.

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